holoween
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Posts
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Posts posted by holoween
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11 hours ago, The_Capt said:
So we are not talking about EW, or at least not just EW. We are talking about an ISR superiority bubble, that if collapses results in a quick ignoble death. A Sense bubble included data and information superiority. If everyone has these then
1) surprise is pretty much dead because we are talking decentralized bubbles not a singular big brain one can hit. You can collapse a Local Bubble but what about the rest? You might even degrade the operational systems but any given maneuver unit has enough integral capability to create their own bubbles.
2) You have to re-think manoeuvre warfare from the ground up. The whole thing is predicated on avoiding strength and hitting vulnerabilities, which is pretty hard if an opponent can see you coming miles off. Further a local Sense bubble collapse also sends a clear signal of effort, which one can also not hide.
3) Mass might be suicidal. As in Airland battle concentration leading to death does not necessarily flow from air superiority. By seeing high mass concentration from well back, or even at it is forming means interdiction can come from many vectors. This plus PGM means NLOS over the horizon massed fires before you even make contact can destroy concentrations of mass. This indicated land warfare might start to resemble naval warfare but distributed.
And I think this only scratches the surfaces as that Sense bubble has to include a logistics tail or security is impossible. Honestly I am going to need a bit of time to digest this all, it was Hapless’ mention of snow globes that clicked it.
I think youre making an assumption without realizing. You assume its impossible to defend against fires. To go with your comparison to naval war why hasnt the surface fleet been made obsolete even though long range anti ship missile exist and why do they still move as formations rather than far dispersed over the entire ocean? Simply put because their ability to shoot down incoming munitions especially with layered mutually supporting defensive fires.
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Surprise on the strategic level has been dead since before ww1 yet it continues to happen even if its just because decision makers dont want to see it.
On the operational level it equally should be dead but it continues to not be because while you can track where a formation is you cant know what its intentions are (you can make assumtions but they can be wrong) and that is when youre not being fed wrong informations via decoys etc.
and on the tactical level its not even an argument. Even in afghanistan and iraq ambushes kept happening while almost perfect drone cover was available. And thats against troops that arent trained to expect and equipped to deal with constant themal imaging hangin above looking for them.
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Id argue the exact opposite. Mass will become far more important. A dispersed infantry unit is easy pickings for weapons like switchblade. Sure you might need one weapon per soldier but thats not too difficult. If youre talking about a platoon of ifvs with aps that can cover each other the effort required to take them out increases massively. Its also easyer to defend this with air defense to reduce an oponents recon asstes effectiveness.
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Manouver warfare is even more important than before. Because with both sides being able to see where the oponent is roughly the one that is able to move faster can create strength vs weakness engagements or avoid being put into them on the defense.
11 hours ago, The_Capt said:Terrain means a lot less, rethink of key terrain and vital ground
Denial and control as transient concepts, not take and hold.
Attritional based on a competition of overwhelming Shield capability
Very long engagement ranges, over the horizon
Power projection and shaping means something quite different, which calls into question decisive land outcomes.
Positioning, not manoeuvre.
These are just for a start.
Again id say the exact opposite is true at least for terrain. Anyone moving in the open better have serious defensive capabilities or they will get quickly eliminated because they will be seen. Get into a city and suddenly not being seen from drones becomes trivial. For forests the drones have to come a whole lot closer and with proper camo it might still be impossible to detect stationary targets.
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44 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
Well this was not a conversation about the carrier vs munition as I understood it. It was about the rising presence of unmanned systems on the modern battlefield and the overall effect that may have on modern warfare.
You seem to be narrowing it down to carriers and munitions; however, it really much more than that. ISR, comms and eventually resupply, medivac and shield functions are going to follow.
But hey whatever floats the boat.
Ok i see where the communications issue was. I apologize for not being clear and for not quoting well.
I was commenting more on the currently and near future use of UAVs and counters.
But to generalize for the future i dont think the mass drones armies are going to materialize. All promo ideas ive ever seen posted basically ignore countermeasures and assume ideal circumstances but ill have to write up a far larger post to cover that and im too tired atm so ill do that tomorrow.
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17 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
Well you are losing me there. So with modern MALE systems one can literally sit within an friendly AD bubble and strike an opponents rear areas.
Eventually someone is going to mount a Switchblade onto a Class 2 UAV so now you have an airborne system carrying another system that together have an 80km range which means they can hit SLOC entry points in the theatre. Then someone is going to create a self-loitering system with smart DPICM and hit strategic targets like a ship or port…oh wait.
S’ok though we got AA Guns.
Where am i loosing you?
I think the distinction between munitions and carrier systems is quite warranted as they have quite different characteristics in dealing with them.
Since even the US army considers the Switchblade a munition rather than a drone i dont see myself beeing way off on this either.
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7 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
Ok, so I think we are miscommunicating here, what do you define as a "drone"?
Id define it as a drone if its supposed to survive and as a munition if its supposed to explode on a target.
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3 hours ago, Bil Hardenberger said:
A Bayraktar tb2 costs from $1-2 million, and AH-64 costs over $30 million... for the cost, they UAVs give a much better bang for the buck.
well lets compare to a us build drone so we dont need to do currency conversions etc to reach a comparable price
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper#Variants
somewhere around 25m so not actually that much cheaper.
3 hours ago, The_Capt said:But it was by the TB2 - I swear there was video, hell the damn thing hit a train. And, more importantly ISR on that column. why the UA did not crush that thing remains a bit of a mystery but the obvious reason is that they did not feel they had to based on frozen feet and abandoned vehicles.
The advantages of unmanned systems are a lot more than endurance by a wide margin:
- Unit Cost - including up front and lifetime maint.
- User Training
- Logistical Tail
- Losing Cost in terms of not losing a very expensive crew
- Profile - they are much smaller and harder to find than an Apache
- Ubiquity-ocity - All the above lead to a lot more of them per sq km than AH.
Their major weaknesses are payload, speed, survivability (if you can hit them). But they have a lot of offsets for these most of it being in overall scale of use.
For the drone vs apache comparison i mostly agree except the profile part. the drone doesnt have much lower wingspan but more importantly the apache can fly below treetop level masking it entirely from enemy observation while the drones will have to fly quite a bit higher making it easier to observe. And still for pure combat performance the apache is miles ahead which is quite important for a weapon intended to be used at the point of main effort.
But thats not an manned vs unmanned equal system comparison. for that wed have to compare drones with something similar but manned like:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_EMB_314_Super_Tucano#Specifications_(EMB_314_Super_Tucano)
It practically costs the same and brings the same capabilities. With the big difference of endurance and having a crew.
So less time spend circling overhead but able to operate in an ew environment.
This brings me back to a poin that i think everyone keeps ignoring. These drones are at best as difficult to shoot down as a ww2 attack aircraft and at worst actually quite a bit easier as they are a lot slower.
Now dont get me wrong i dont think that drones wont make a difference. They do require an adjustment of tactics and a buildup of short range air defense but the drones that most affect combat are not the medium to large sized drones carrying weapons. These can be neutralized with good tactics and equipment. The small and tiny drones used to recon and guide artillery are making a far bigger impact and ar far more difficult to counter.
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1 minute ago, The_Capt said:
It is not a question of "can't or can" it is a question of comparative "can". Is it easier for a UAV/UGS to find their targets, be they kinetic or ISR? Or is it easier for C-UAV/UGV systems to find their targets? Right now the former is proving more true than the latter.
We should not, and there is growing evidence that we cannot, simply wish away the realities of unmanned systems on the battlefield, or that they are here to stay. I get the sense from some corners - and here I am talking military professionals- that they want to sweep the UAVs from the field in a "real war" so we can all go back to normal business. The alarming trend in all of our observations, at least since 2014, is than we cannot.
Finally technology trends are on the side of unmanned systems. More miniaturization, greater processing power, smaller better cameras, longer and lighter battery life leading to increased endurance, more potent explosives technology meaning higher lethality in smaller packages and, the big one...decreasing comparative costs per unit. Everything that is giving one a slimmer, better cellphone is driving unmanned systems farther and faster.
I think itw quite indicative that the massive supply collumn north west of kiev never got attacked with drones even though it should have been an easy target. So at least the ukrainians are still keeping out of aa coverage with their drones and i dont see why this should be any different for any other nation.
Also drones only really have a capability advantedge over manned systems in staying power. An apache can do everything an attack drone can except stay over the battlefield for 24 hours. A drone can also be risked more but a drone shot down is still a weapons system out of action even if it doesnt cost a soldiers life.
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6 minutes ago, keas66 said:
The thing I wonder about APS systems is keeping them reloaded in a intense battle scenerio . Maybe you can swarm a APS protected system with a dozen cheap AT weapons and exhaust the APS system - then finally take out the tank .
A tank can hold more aps charges than an entire infantry platoon can carry at weapons.
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Just now, dan/california said:
Two issue going forward with APS going forward. Does it simply cost two much to deploy at scale? And can the radar be jammed, and or itself be used to guide a missile to the tank.
It certainly could be jammed if you get a large enough emitter close enough but thats a stationary soft target advertising itself to everyone so its going to get artied quite early on.
And you could possibly get radar homing missiles against aps that constantly transmitt but theyre already starting to get "sleepmodes" where the radar is cued by passive sensors and only then activated to intercept the threat.
And yes its expensive but youre making afvs practically immune to infantry at fire so thats quite a bit of value
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2 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
This seems to be the common sentiment; however, this is not an easy ask:
- To jam one is dumping very high amounts of EM energy into the air. This is very easy to see, fix and kill in a contested environment. So there is no big red "EM" easy button.
- Modern militaries, well good ones, use al sorts of frequency hopping, field networks, satellites, LOS systems and bunch of classified tricks to ensure we have data feeds...they are kinda important. So again, no magic "jam" wand.
- Semi-autonomous, means that jamming doesn't mean the UAVs start falling out of the sky like cherry blossom leaves. The current generation is vulnerable but future ones will be pre-loaded with enough AI to return to base, or try and evade jamming without a human being in the loop. In fact there will likely be a race to fully autonomous for this exact reason.
- Military spec stuff is already built to survive EMP and a lot of this stuff, so again "wave the wand Harry-mischief managed" is not a realistic expectation.
One safe prediction I will make is that UAV/UGV, C-UAV/UGV and C-C-UAV/UGV development are going to go into overdrive after this war and will likely continue for some time to come.
I dont buy the cant shoot down drones argument.
Autocannons with airburst rounds are quite capable in dealing with small drones. And short/medium range anti air missile are very easily capable of dealing with medium drones. The core of this threat is exactly the same as light ground attack aircraft during the cold war. Yes their weapons are more accurate but for aa they are a far easier target because the weapons carrying ones are big enough to easily spot with radar and unlike manned aircraft are far slower and less manouverable.
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14 minutes ago, dan/california said:
Given that ATGMs almost completely dominate any fight where the opposing sides can see each other, how do you make them more effective. My little Idea is pretty simple. The missile needs to be able to crawl a 30 or 40 yards on its own and then be fired remotely. The Ukrainians have already demonstrated the effectiveness of their Stugna ATGM with a controller that has a few tens of meters of wire. So imagine a javelin with a similar set-up that could crawl the last twenty meters to the crest of the hill by itself. Imagine the javelin crawling out onto the balcony of a hi-rise building, While the operator is doing his best to be tiny and invisible in the hallway. The next level trick of course is for the sensor to do the crawling, and the missile fires from a 1/4 mile back. But I really think a Javelin with even a twenty meter crawl range would be game changing, and there is no "new" tech involved, just a nice integration of things that are pretty much out there.
Heard of the Spike ATGM?
You can simply fire it from behind a hill when told there are targets and then guide them onto the target.
And the swingfire has basically the same idea.
The big issue with atgms is that while they currently dominate active protection systems are starting to be fielded and once they arrive in numbers it will make current atgms largely obsolete at least against vehicle targets.
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2 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:
A test that has a tank in hull down being fired at while not moving is a flawed test. Anything not moving while being fired at is increasing its chance of being hit. Whether that is an infantryman, a machine gun team, a tank, an IFV, whatever. Displacing is a fundamental tactical movement.
Except you cant do a proper berm drill because your tank wont see the target so you have to pop up and down hoping the tank will spot and shoot in time.
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57 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:
Huh. Pretty much all of my experience playing the Soviets is that I have T-62s both outspotting and outshooting M60s, and the M60s are unbuttoned while the T-62s are buttoned up. Crazy how different these anecdotes are.
I havent noticed Soviet tanks to be particularly blind though somewhat less attentive. However the randomness of CM spotting is far more noticable so id say most issues being brought up is people expecting far more than reasonable.
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2 hours ago, Jim Storr said:
The Wehrmacht had extensive experience of APCs in WW2; they specified what became the Marder; but they did not foresee the rise in shoulder-fired weapons.
Are we talking about the same Wehrmacht and Bundeswehr? Because the Wehrmacht i know was quite enthusiastically giving out panzerfaust and panzerschreck to its units. The Bundeswehr following it did the same with the Carl Gustav and Pzf44 so them not expecting it would require some incredible institutional blindness.
2 hours ago, Jim Storr said:People go on and on about the HS30 but overlook the fact that it was a Swiss stopgap design which was clearly substandard. Only 2,176 were built of the 10,680 planned. When they got to design the vehicle they wanted, they designed the Marder. Middeldorf's books point to the Marder, not the HS30.
Being a stopgap and not as good as wanted doesnt prevent it from being seen and employed as an IFV and drawing conclusions from its use. The wehrmacht proved quite capable of invading Poland and France with stopgap tanks.
2 hours ago, Jim Storr said:'Interestingly as much as the Arab Israeli wars were studied by Soviets and Nato alike neither abandoned their IFVs.'. The Arab-Israeli wars took place in 1956, 1967 and in 1973. In 1973 both the AMX 10P and the Marder were just entering service; the Bradley and the Warrior didn't enter service until later. So, arguably no NATO country had IFVs to abandon.
In 1956 te Bundeswehr had barely started to exist, in 1967 it had IFVs in use for 7 years and in 1973 it was on its second generation IFV.
2 hours ago, Jim Storr said:But the wider point about analysis of the Arab-Israeli wars is addressed as Page 67-69. In brief: 'Overall, western nations did examine Middle-Eastern wars and made some important adjustments. But that did not change the way they fought very much'. (P68) If western analysts had looked more closely they would have noticed, for example, that in 1973 not a single BMP penetrated beyond the Israeli strongpoints; whereas Syrian tanks penetrated several kilometers. Enough said?
That BMPs werent following the tanks says more about the combined arms coordination than the vehicle used. It actually shows a quite bleak picture for Syrian officers competence and therefore calls taking the lessons lerned by Israel at face value into question.
2 hours ago, Jim Storr said:I have not found a single example of IFVs fighting their way onto well-prepared, well defended positions in the Second or 3rd Gulf Wars. I am less familiar with the 2008 Georgian War and the 2014 war in the Ukraine but believe that the same applies.
During the second gulf war the initial Iraqi positions were well prepared but mostly destroyed by artillery. The 2008 and 2014 wars saw russian troops mostly counterattacking units on the offensive.
I find the assertion that fighting into a well-prepared and well-defended position is a flawed metric for judging an IFVs value. They enable highly mobile operations which are far more effective in winning fights. No matter how well prepared and defended your positions are they can be broken as evidenced during WW2.
Also some interesting loss statistics from those middle eastern wars:
Second gulf war 1,487 tanks, 1,384 infantry fighting vehicles Employed by US troops resulting in 31 tanks destroyed/disabled and 28 Bradley IFVs destroyed/damaged indicating an equal chance of being knocked out.
For the 1982 Lebanon war For Israel its 1,240 tanks and 1,500 armoured personnel carriers employed 130 tanks destroyed/damaged and 175 APCs destroyed/damaged.
This suggests that on a large scale tanks arent much more survivable than IFVs.
2 hours ago, Jim Storr said:I am astonished by Holoween's analysis of the choices which the Israelis made. Heavy APCs like Namer face insurgents, so they are closer in purpose to MRAPs? Really? Purpose? The IDF designed Namer in order to 'face insurgents'? I don't think so.
Primary threat are IEDs, light anti tank weapons, far heavier and less mobile than their immediate laternative, used primarily in very rough ground or cities against oponents that reach at best western light infantry standards.
Biggest difference is that the Namer weighs 60tons and is supposed to also be usable in conventional war.
Also my initial statement was somewhat exagerated so this isnt the hill ill die on.
2 hours ago, Jim Storr said:The real issue at stake here is the one that I identified on Pages 124, 125, 287 and 288: evidence. I analysed such evidence as I could find. The real-world, high quality evidence is patchy and inconclusive. If anything it suggests the use of heavy APCs. Gaming suggests that IFVs are a bad idea.
Here is my main problem though and where i wonder why you didnt adress my first post at all.
I pointed out issues i have with your method of reaching your conclusion specifically possible weaknesses in the ruleset you used based on your description of what happened. I dont know the ruleset but when my irl experience clashes with my wargaming experience i first question if my wargaming experience has any possible flaws causing the results. You take the results as is without examining the ruleset for possible issues.
Your conclusion might very well be correct but it contradicts practically all modern armies with all their combined experience so the burden of proof is on your end to show youre right and everyone else is wrong and you present very little hard evidence. What you present is wargaming under one specific ruleset modified by yourself against the same oponent and to validate you use one military not using IFVs where there might be other reasons involved as i pointed out. At least for me that is not enough so id be quite happy if you could actually clarify.
Thank you for the replies so far. Its highly unusual to be able to discuss a book like this with its author so its much apreciated.
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26 minutes ago, Simcoe said:
For sure. I think the issue is you are usually given a force that needs to work together to win. Infantry to scout forward, artillery to take out priority targets, tanks to clear out infantry.
This is 100% true and the right thing to do... in 1944 Normandies bocage.
In simple terms this is an infantry centric aproach. The infantry carries the battle supported by artillery and tanks. Its a low casualtie high munitions aproach that takes a lot of time.
If youre the Soviets in an attack through germany or any Nato country counterattacking you dont have that time. By the time you scouted a hill across the enemy has broken through and is rampaging in your backfield destroying your arty and supplies.
The cold war gone hot is a tank war. The tank forms the centerpiece of the battle. All other arms exist to maximise the tanks effect. Your recon is motorized to not slow the tank down. If that means the recon is recon by death then so be it as long as it shows where the enemy is (obviously its preferable to not die but its acceptable in the grand sceme). The Infantry is driving in AFVs to cover the areas tanks arent great in. Clear small villages, patches of forrest, etc. Artillery fire denies positions where ATGMs could be employed to disrupt the attack. Any strong resistance is simply bypassed and only cleared out by followon forces.
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Now the Next interesting topic is how you chose to validate your results namely with the one exception among major armies that doesnt use IFVs Israel.
"The only army to have much experience of APC operations in regular war did not adopt IFVs." p.122
Historically its actually exactly the opposite. The army with the most experience using APCs being the wehrmacht with the SdKfz 251 literally starting ww2 with an APC. And as soon as the Bundeswehr formed they went for getting an IFV with the HS 30 8 years ahead of the BMP1.
Out of all major militaries Israel is actually the exception in not having an IFV.
So lets examine what could have lead to this and what they are using instead.
The area Israel has to fight in has generally quite rough terrain and a fairly high number of highly build up areas. This generally puts a higher emphasis on the dismounts. It also decreases the value of the added speed of advance IFVs can give formations. Israel also had a fairly long history of Insurgency fighting where IFVs also tend to not excel (compare Iraq occupation) though htats straying away from the regular war narative.
Interestingly as much as the Arab Israeli wars were studied by Soviets and Nato alike neither abandoned their IFVs. The biggest influence being the development of BMP2. Curiously with 1 fewer dismounts compared to BMP1 so lack of dismounted infantry wasnt the takeaway.
What seems to be far more influential is that Israel maintains an army of a size it can only afford due to extensive military aid and during the cold war the same was true of its oponents. Its main aid contributor was the US which for the time of Israels major wars simply didnt own IFVs and so couldnt sell them but istead sold APCs. At that point Israel also had very limited AFV production capability so the combination of essentially free APCs and production of IFVs eating into the tank numbers its obviously the better choice to not produce IFVs.
To feed into this the heavy APCs build were primarily captured or outdaatet tank chassis repurposed and only with the Namer did they produce them from the ground up resulting in far lower numbers than they would like. These heavy APCs also face primarily Insurgents not a regular army so are in purpose closer to the modern US MRAP.
IFVs have also been used in several regular wars (2nd and 3rd gulf war, 2008 Georgian war and 2014 in Ukraine). So far they all seem to have accounted quite well for themselves seeing as no unser advocated to stop using them.
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Jim Storr ive gotten the book a few weeks ago and have read through it a few times now. Generally i found it easy to read though somewhat heavy on opinions rather than analysis.
You might have found a quite critical audience here as i as several before me take issue with a certain aspect of the book. In my case ill focus on the chapter Infantry and Antitank Forces specifically your discussion of IFVs.
I think wargaming is a valuable source if information but always needs to be cross referenced with rl data.
However the IFV section is entirely at odds with the vast majority of modern armies and from reading it seemed inherently at odds with what was being said. It is also at odds with my personal experience so i was trying to wrap my head around it until i started collecting quotes from it to make a rebuttal ten i realized where the issue comes from.
"Ground-mounted cannon, such as the French and German 20mm, would have beenhighly effectivea gainst enemy APCs." p.116
"Cannon and ATGMs could be very effective [...] Once dismounted in cover, they could be very difficult to locate" p.123
So the Weapons the IFVs carried were effective so why not the IFV itself? Lets see the defense:
"IFVs located in a defensive position [...] tended to be knocked out by artillery fire, or neutralized and then easy prey to the attackers, be it tanks or shoulder-fired antitank weapons." p.124
"If IFVs were sited outside defensive positions [...] being quite large vehicles, they attrackted fire from the attackers Tanks and ATGMs." p.124
This implies that either a dismounted 20mm cannon is more resistant to artillery bombardement or its position wont be spotted and so not bombarded. That is strange in two ways. The IFV should be more resistant to artillery and given its mobility should be sitting outside of view only to move into its firing position when targets are called my the infantry and so actually harder to spot. Or dug in and just have its turret exposed in which case it should be equally difficult to spot but still be more resistant to artillery fire.
Now looking at the offense
"vehicle-mounted cannon and MGs did not help. [...] difficulty in locating the defenders, who were invariably concealed and often dug in." p.123
"Conversely they made the [...] IFVs obvious and high-priority targets for the defender´s fire." p.123
This is strange in two ways. First for supressing defenders and assisting the own infantry exact locations of the defenders need not be known. Simply supressing areas that could be dangerous to the own infantry if occupied by enemy infantry will do the majority of work since 20mm cannons firing he at 1000rpm cyclic into the defenders general area is going to keep their heads down. Even more if there is a full platoon doing this.
Second is that in the game even with their aparently ineffective fire they were still the priority target and not the supporting tanks (and if there werent any why?)
But what about using their ATGMs?
"Where IFVs used [...] ATGMs [...] they were highly vulnerable to enemy ATGM fire, from either dismounted launchers or specialist antitank vehicles. In both cases the enemy were much harder to locate" p.123
This is again somewhat strange. An IFVs turret is certainly larger than an atgm launcher alone but for the ATGM vehicle that is only the case if it can go hulldown in which case an IFVs turret still wouldnt be much bigger and far more importantly the main way an ATGM will get located is dust and smoke kicked up from the weapons launch which will be the same in either case.
These contradictions between observed results and expected results indicate to me that:
1. There is a spotting mechanic in the ruleset used and IFVs are at a higher disadvantedge as a result
2. Improper defensive doctrine at least for western vehicles who should have several fighting positions and frequently switch. Possibly combined with the ruleset not giving the bonus for a defensive position when employing such a strategy
3. Strange targeting priorities or improper support. A defending unit should prioritize supporting tanks when employing anti tank weapons as they are the biggest threat to the individual unit. In wargaming its easy to always target the unit that will result in the greatest chance of overall success but for the actual troops individual survival is key. A tank will given the choice between an IFV or a tank first shoot the tank because that is the bigger threat. If Tanks simply werent involved the quewstion becomes why not? IFVs are combined arms weapons and suffer when left alone just like any other weapon.
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2 hours ago, BeondTheGrave said:
My own work looks to conclusively show that German and American doctrine werent all that different in theory
If we strip away WW2 credit id say this is what you end up with making the difference (if there actually is any).
Just because the doctrine is the same in theory doesnt mean its the same in practice. Because if you give 3 people the same doctrine to solve a problem you end up with 4 different ways to fight. So if you wanted to find an apreciable difference youd have to look at how they each ended up working in exercises.
Another difference could come from different training standards for the units.
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You could smoke the hedge and then move up to it. You can easily place 2 squads on that hedge and they should easily overwhelm anything inside the buildings once the smoke clears.
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45 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:
I think here is where our opinions differ. It is the persons philosophy when you play the game. Historical a platoon of three Stug III crewed by veterans opposed by a company of JS2's crewed by a mix from a Veteran HQ with green and conscript crews. You probably lose with your three overpriced Stug III but with the parameters you may get a tactical victory. The prices may be influenced by the historical battles. Nothing wrong with your petition it goes with your philosophy when you play the game. You have the right to get fun out of the game.
For scenarios pints practically dont matter only in qb.
So arguing with scenarios isnt relevant to the discussion.
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1 minute ago, chuckdyke said:
I said it before we only can guess how BF calculates the prices of AFV's.
Yes and the point were making is that whatever way theyre currently doing it leads to the stug being too expensive.
1 minute ago, chuckdyke said:I have a few years experience in playing this game and observe a pattern when using a Stug III. A 76mm Sherman needs support from the platoon it is part of. Otherwise it will come out bad.
That isnt exclusive to the sherman. Every tank works best when given spotting information be it from the platoon or supporting units and afvs always work best when massed.
1 minute ago, chuckdyke said:With the Stug III you need to look at tactics to make it effective.
If i have to be better than the oponent to have equal chances my kit is worse and should therefore cost less.
1 minute ago, chuckdyke said:The Germans put the gun in a casemate on tracks and gave the crew specialist training using high grade optics. I wish people to have fun playing the game, and should have a say of how the prices are calculated.
I havent been able to observe an accuracy difference between pz4 and stug.
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18 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:
AI battle plans of Stug III ***SPOILERS*** Knock them All down. Stug III hiding in front once spotted it is history, Chaumont first round Stug III sitting on the crest of a hill. Courage Conquers Stug III again on the top of a crest. All nice maps and the problem with campaigns you can't play against a human player. The Stug III needs to have infantry nearby also putting 2 infantry men on the engine deck is a big help.
None of this is stug specific but simple afv tactics. So basing pricing on the german side simply always outplaying the oponents is strange.
4 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:Tanks the Stug III is not a tank the fact if they were assigned to a tank unit they may have been used as a tank. Crew received special training and without infantry they are easily outmaneuvered.
So There youre admitting to a stugs disadvvantedge over other (turreted) afvs.
4 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:It was mobile artillery good against infantry in buildings.
Until it got the long 75mm.
4 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:Playing the games tanks are spotted by infantry in excess of a kilometer without visual aids. Combine a Stug III with an infantry unit and it will spot armor quickly and its gun can do serious damage to any allied tank.
Yes afvs combined with inf works better nothing in favour of the stug specifically.
4 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:It will spot infantry if friendly infantry is nearby. The gun is on par with the US 76mm and its HE I would say superior.
Do you have anything to back that up?
4 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:The Germans designed purposely made tank-guns in the beginning of the war. The KwK means tank-gun. Its AP slightly less than the PAK75 mm but its HE superior.
Anything that gets a slight modification to fit inside a tank gets the designatiok kwk even if the actual gun barrel and the rounds fired are identical.
4 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:The Brits did something similar with their 17 pounder and called it the 77 mm. In the best Monty Python tradition they did it in 1945 with the Comet. Happy gaming. The Churchill tank a pillbox on tracks and they don't called it an infantry tank for nothing. Poor in pursuit but an excellent weapon with infantry. How do you let your tanks spot infantry in the game?
How is any of that relevant to the discussion?
This petition comes from members of a forum playing hvh with capable commanders on both sides. So basic tricks are usually used by everyone. What has come out of it is that noone ever picks stugs if they want to win. They are far more expensive than their combat performance warrants.
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12 hours ago, chuckdyke said:
On MG 3 machine guns, two types of bolts are available, with standard weight (about 650 g (22.93 oz)) for the standard 1,000–1,300 rounds per minute cyclic rate of fire and with extra weight (about 900 g (31.75 oz)) for a slower 800–950 rounds per minute cyclic rate of fire. Those bolts also are used along with different return springs.
In german army service which is currently the only ore relevant to cm there is only one bolt weight and spring with a cyclic rate of fire of 1150+-50rpm.
12 hours ago, chuckdyke said:Not completely right not completely wrong the machine gunner has the final word of how many rounds he shoots. After 150 rounds of rapid fire the gunner changes the barrel.
Note that only applied when the gunner has a break to change the barrel. The barrel can absorb quite a few more rounds through it but that is starting to degrate its lifetime. Also after 1000 rounds youre supposed to swap bolt but that is never actually adhered to. Its usually simply switch bolt at the end of the day or when stoppages occur that could be atributed to the bolt.
12 hours ago, chuckdyke said:In the tripod mounted medium machine gun role MG 3 users are trained to fire short bursts and bursts of 20 to 30 rounds and strive to optimize their aim between bursts fired in succession. After around 150 rounds of rapid fire, the gun operator will replace the hot barrel with a new, cooler one. In practical terms the estimate of 600 rpm is not unreasonable.
How long a burst you fire depends entirely on the situation.
If youre trying to keep the oponents heads down youll fire multiple 3-5 round bursts shifting aim point between each.
If you have a squad in the open multiple 20-30 round bursts are called for.
And for final protective fires cyclic until the gunner until the gunner runs out of ammo or has to readjust aim.
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11 hours ago, chuckdyke said:
The MG3 the modern version is back to around 600RPM.
That is simply wrong. Mg3 has 1200RPM.
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10 minutes ago, Redwolf said:
The SU-76 spots better because it is open top. The StuG is closed top.
And the SU-76 is 144 points compared to 250 for the T-34/76.
su 76 is better compared to the wespe.
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
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Im not sure i fully agree with you. In that specific instance at least it would have ment almost certain death for whoever stays behind as the next round lands just a few seconds later. And at 2:35 you can see them draging a guy to safety until they get hit.